French Politics

Debates and Controversies

Robert Elgie, Steven Griggs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136224744
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Accessible, up-to-date and comprehensive, this is an essential introduction to the French political system. Featuring detailed analysis of the most important debates and controversies concerning French politics today, the expert authors conclude that study of this subject is being transformed in response to a changing global, European and domestic environment. Includes coverage of: * the relationship between president and prime minister * voting behaviour * European integration * the changing parameters of state intervention.

1 The state

The French policy-making process is traditionally said to be state-centred. Arguably, the state does not just react to the demands of civil society, parties, interest groups, social movements and so on. It is not considered to be a ‘weathervane’ state which simply registers the way in which the prevailing social wind is blowing. Instead, the French state has traditionally been viewed as a directive state. Societal forces are themselves said to be shaped and controlled by state institutions at both the central and local level. Recently, though, the role of the state has been called into question. The size of the state has been criticised. One popular catch phrase in the 1980s was ‘too much state kills the state’. In other words, it was argued that the state was a positive force, but that its scope needed to be reduced in order for the state sector to operate more efficiently. In this context, people have argued that the role of the state has now changed and that its power has been reduced. For over a decade now, the state has been downsized. The principles of managerialism and consumerism have been accentuated and the state has, so it is argued, become more modest.

This chapter examines competing models of the French state. It considers the state’s capacity to act autonomously in the policy process and its potential to structure, if not impose, patterns of political behaviour on groups and individuals. The competing conceptions of the strength of the French state lie behind contemporary debates on many of the topics to be dealt with in later chapters. For example, fundamental assumptions about the organisation and limits of the French state inform models of interest group politics (see Chapter 7) and party politics (see Chapter 5), debates over the influence of the bureaucracy in policy making (see Chapter 3), conceptions of the resources at the disposal of the core executive (see Chapter 2), interpretations of centre–periphery relations (see Chapter 4) and claims of the exceptionalism of French politics (see Chapter 8). However, the specific focus of this chapter is an examination of the tradition of étatisme, or the extent to which the state is a political actor in its own right, with its own preferences and with the capacity to influence the political process to its own ends.

The chapter begins by analysing the changing parameters of the French state in recent years. It then goes on to identify three separate models of the French state: the strong state model, the weak state model and the disoriented state model.

The organisation of the French state

The origins of state intervention lie in the absolutist politics of the pre-1789 Ancien Régime. Indeed, it was Louis XIV who declared: ‘L’État, c’est moi.’ Since this time, the role of the state has expanded both administratively, particularly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and economically and socially, notably during the twentieth century. Recently, though, the role of the state has been revised. New forms of state activity have emerged and old forms of state intervention have all but disappeared. In Chapters 3 and 4 respectively, the organisation of the central bureaucracy and local government will be analysed. In the first part of this chapter, though, the contemporary role of the French state will be outlined by focusing on three other key aspects of the state system: the number of public-sector employees, the range of state-sector institutions and the regulatory power of state representatives.

The number of public-sector employees

There are a large number of state employees in France. In 1996 a total of 5,316,800 people were in public-sector employment. In other words, nearly 25 per cent of the total workforce is employed by the state (official figures reported in L’Express, 30 October, 1997, pp. 44–5). In comparative terms, this is a large figure but not an exceptional one. It compares to only 15.7 per cent in Germany but as much as 32.7 per cent in both Denmark and Sweden. In France, not all of these state-employed civil servants work in government departments. Of all French public-sector employees, 846,900 people are employed as hospital workers, 1,442,700 people are employed by local authorities (see Chapter 4), 480,300 people work for France Télécom, 387,100 people are in the defence forces and ‘only’ 1,827,300 people work for government departments in the strict sense of the word. Moreover, in this latter category, over half are employed by the Education Ministry, as all school teachers are officially classified as civil servants. So, the number of departmental bureaucrats is actually much smaller than the brute figures might suggest. Still, though, the figure is not inconsiderable and the total number of people employed by the state in the widest sense of the term is larger still. Moreover, in the 1980s, at a time when governments in many other countries were cutting back on the number of public employees, in France the number of people employed by the state actually rose by 386,000 from 1980 to 1985 and by a further 112,000 from 1985 to 1990 (Ibid., p. 42). Furthermore, in 1997, the newly-elected left-wing government led by Lionel Jospin launched an ambitious plan to create 350,000 new state-sector jobs mainly for young unemployed people. For the most part, these people carry out only basic functions, such as security guards in schools, but they do still have a job and they are still paid by the state. All of this suggests, therefore, that there continues to be a very strong emphasis in France on the idea that the public sector performs a social as well as a purely administrative function, and that in this sense, it has a role to play in the fight against unemployment.

State-sector institutions

State-sector employees in France are employed in wide variety of organisations. One characteristic of the French state is the plethora of commissions, committees, companies and the like which have been established over the years to direct and manage the policy process. In recent years, the state has privatised some of its most well-known enterprises. However, the range of state-sector institutions still comprises a host of organisations.

State-sector institutions include central administrative organisations such as the Planning Commission, which was responsible for the post-war state-directed economic modernisation process, and the Regional Development and Action Authority (DATAR), which was established in 1963 to oversee the process of regional regeneration. In addition, there is a strong public-sector presence at the local level (see Chapter 4). For the most part, these officials are employed by local authorities, but there are also large numbers of state employees working in the field services of central government departments. Indeed, around 92 per cent of departmental civil servants work outside Paris.

In addition, the range of state organisations also includes a large number of public-sector companies. Indeed, such is the variety of these bodies that an official report by the Council of State concluded that they exhibit an ‘immense variety of objectives, size, statutes and importance which defy any comprehensive categorisation’. In general, though, there are three categories of public companies.

The first may be called public enterprises of an administrative nature. These include organisations such as the state publishing house. They also include schools. Equally, they include organisations like the Chambers of Commerce, and bodies that charge for their services, such as museums. However, they are not, strictly speaking, commercial enterprises. One characteristic of these types of public enterprises is that all their employees have the status of civil servants.

The second may be called public enterprises of an industrial or commercial nature. These organisations have two points in common. First, the state is the sole shareholder. Second, they are subject to the terms of private law. They include nationalised industries, such as the state-owned electricity and gas companies (EDF and GDF, respectively). However, they also include mixed-economy enterprises, such as the ports authorities, the airports authorities and the National Forestry Commission. They are subject to strict supervision by the ministry to which they report. Their accounts are also checked by the state Court of Accounts (Cour des Comptes). One characteristic of these types of public enterprise is that, generally speaking, only the director and the accountant of the company have the official status of civil servants. The others are still public employees but they operate under a separate set of statutes.

The third may be called mixed-economy companies. These are a more recent form of state intervention. They consist of companies which have private shareholders but in which the state also has a stake. They are often new organisations which have been set up to meet the changing requirements of the state. However, they also take the form of older state-owned public companies into which private capital has been introduced and whose status, thus, has changed. Examples of these types of company include those which have been created to build large infrastructure projects, part of which are state financed and part of which are financed by private investors. They represent a way in which state intervention can be managed alongside private capital. In this sense, they are a more flexible form of state intervention and a less costly one to the taxpayer.

The increasing recourse to mixed-economy companies is a sign that the role of the state is changing. Indeed, a similar sign can be found in the recent process of privatisation. Since the mid-1980s, the state has sold off a number of companies to the private sector. To date, there have been two waves of privatisations.

The first wave occurred in 1986 when Jacques Chirac’s right-wing coalition government won power and proposed a five-year privatisation programme consisting of a total of 66 companies, 1,454 subsidiaries and over 900,000 employees. In fact, the programme was cut short, first, by the October 1987 stock market crash, second, by Chirac’s defeat at the 1988 presidential election and, third, because of criticisms of the programme – the price at which the shares were sold off was considered to be too low and the government picked a so-called ‘noyau dur’, or stable core, of investors, many of whom had close links with the government. Nevertheless, by the time the privatisation programme had ended in 1988 a total of fourteen industries, including banking, advertising and glass-making companies, had been partly or completely privatised. This wave of privatisations brought in a total of 85 billion francs. Indeed, the privatisations were also very popular with the public. Many were oversubscribed and the number of private shareholders rose from 1.2 million in 1986 to over 7 million in 1988.

The second wave of privatisation began in 1993 under the right-wing coalition government headed by the gaullist, Édouard Balladur. The government indicated that twenty-one state-owned companies would be sold off. Indeed, over the course of the next two years some very important companies were privatised. These companies were significant not just in terms of their overall industrial strength, but also in terms of their political symbolism. They included ‘historic’ nationalised industries which had been taken under state control in the gaullist-led Liberation government in the immediate post-Second World War period. So, for example, the first tranche of Renault shares was sold off in November 1994, yielding 8 billion francs. The second wave of privatisation then continued under the next right-wing government from 1995 to 1997 headed by another gaullist, Alain Juppé. During this period a further tranche of Renault shares was sold off raising a further 2 billion francs. Equally, there was a large-scale privatisation of the insurance company AGF, which yielded 9 billion francs.

As might be expected, the left has been more opposed to the privatisation process but, in office, it has still gone ahead with a number of initiatives. When President Mitterrand was re-elected in 1988, the privatisation programme appeared to have been stopped. The president’s manifesto contained a commitment to the so-called ‘ni-ni’ strategy, meaning that there would be neither nationalisation nor privatisation. In fact, though, the socialist government from 1988–93 did renege somewhat on this commitment. It did so not by outright privatisation, but by blurring the distinction between the public and private sectors. For example, in 1990 Renault signed a deal with Volvo which allowed some private capital to be invested in the company. Then, in 1991 it was announced that partial privatisations were acceptable. The government would retain a majority stake, but a percentage of the stock of nationalised companies could be sold off to the private sector. Four companies were affected from November 1991 to March 1993 and, in fact, in one case, the government failed to retain its majority stake-holding. So, for example, in November 1991 the first tranche of Crédit Local de France was sold off which yielded 1.5 billion francs. Similarly, a percentage of the shares of the state-owned computer company, Bull, were sold to American and Japanese investors. Since the election in 1997 of the left-wing ‘plural’ coalition, the process of privatisation has continued. Indeed, in the space of less than two years in office the government had authorised the sale of shares in companies such as France Télécom, Aerospatiale, Air France, Crédit Lyonnais and Thomson to name but a few. In most cases, but not Aerospatiale, the state retained more than a 50 per cent stake of the shareholding. In the case of the bank Crédit Lyonnais, privatisation was forced on the government by the European Commission. However, that a government which included communist representation should even contemplate, never mind approve, such a policy, and in such a wide variety of cases, is worthy of note. Indeed, the contrast with the policy of the 1981 administration could hardly be more striking.

All told, privatisation is likely to continue even under left-wing governments. There is now a sense right across the political spectrum that the state does not have an obligation to control the commanding heights of the economy even for purely symbolic reasons.

The regulatory power of state representatives

The Constitution of the Fifth Republic severely curtailed the power of the French legislature. One of the many ways in which it did so was by specifying the ‘domain of the law’, or the policy areas in which the legislature is able to legislate (Article 34). Outside these areas, the prime minister has the power to issue regulations, or decrees, which have the force of law (le pouvoir réglementaire). In many cases, the precise wording of the decree will be prepared by individual ministers and will be subject simply to the prime minister’s formal approval and signature. However, the prime minister does have the right to issue his/her own more general decrees (le pouvoir réglementaire autonome). In this sense, the prime ministership has come to resemble a substitute parliamentary chamber. For example, one writer has argued that the prime minister signs on average 1,500 decrees (décrets) and 7,000–8,000 ministerial orders (arrêtés) per year (Ardant, 1991). Moreover, in a range of areas the president also has the right to make appointments and issue similar decrees. One consequence of this general situation is that the state’s representatives are in a position to control fundamental areas of policy making and implementation in a very direct and immediate way.

In recent years, though, the government’s capacity to shape the policy process in this way has been curtailed somewhat. In particular, there has been an increasing recourse to independent administrative agencies. These are statutory organisations which have the responsibility for regulating particular policy domains. So, for example, prior to 1981 the broadcasting system was run by a government-controlled agency, the government appointed the senior figures in the industry and the Minister of Information intervened regularly to shape the broadcasting system even to the extent of altering programme scheduling. However, at that time the government established the first independent administrative authority, now known as the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), or Higher Council of Broadcasting, to police the functioning of the broadcasting sector. The CSA issues guidelines and has the power to impose sanctions if the industry fails to carry out its statutory responsibilities. Across all sectors, a considerable number of such agencies, and their equivalents, has been set up and a similar number of existing agencies has been reformed and given greater powers. There are now independent administrative authorities which regulate, amongst other examples, the insurance industry, competition policy and the stock market. In these areas and others, therefore, representatives of the state are no longer able simply to shape the policy process in such an immediate and personal way as before. As a result, the state’s role in the policy process has become more circumscribed.

Against this general background, the different formulations of state power in France will now be considered in detail.

Models of the state in French politics

There are three main interpretations, or models, of the role played by the state in the organisation of French politics and policy making. These models are distinguished by their competing assumptions as to the degree of fragmentation of the state, its level of insulation from the demands of social actors, its capacity to ensure the implementation of policies and, finally, the extent of legitimacy or political authority attributed to the state (Hall, 1986, pp. 164–6). The first model, the statist account, might be considered to be the ‘traditional’ model in that its intellectual roots can be traced as far back as the French Revolution and before. The second model, that of the weak state, might be interpreted as the first of the more contemporary models of the French state to the extent that it emerged following a reappraisal of the influence of the state in the modernisation of the post-war economy. The third model, that of the disoriented state, might be seen as the attempt to provide a contemporary synthesis of the first two models, accepting both the strengths and weaknesses of the French state. There are two versions of this model. The first is the established variant which suggests that the strength of the state varies across policy sectors and from one stage of the policy process to another. The second is a more recent variant which stresses that the role of the state has changed over the last twenty-five years, creating the situation where it is now seeking new tools and modes of regulation.

The strong state model

Étatiste, or statist, accounts of French policy making perceive the state to be a strong and autonomous actor which pursues its own interests within the policy process. Indeed, rather than a passive set of institutions at the mercy of dominant societal interests, representatives of the strong state exploit the policy levers at their disposal so as to impose the implementation of policies across a wide range of sectors. The strength of the state is characterised, at the sectoral level, by the concentration of decision making in a single dominant agency and, at a wider level, by a cross-agency approach to policy making (Atkinson and Coleman, 1989, pp. 51–4). The state’s autonomy from societal actors is determined by well-established definitions of the role of state agencies that are reinforced by coherent value systems and political support. Indeed, state agencies have a different professional ethos from those outside the state sector and both the state’s responsibilities and those of societal interests are defined in a body of law and regulations. In addition, state agencies are able to generate in-house information which they can exploit to accomplish their tasks. Finally, the state is at its strongest in the situation where there are low levels of interest group mobilisation in civil society.

Historically, the state has been central to explanations of French politics ‘even before Louis XIV claimed to be it’ (Schmidt, 1996, p. 15). So, the foundations of the strong state model were laid under the Ancien Régime an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The state
• 2 Executive politics
• 3 The bureaucracy
• 4 Local government
• 5 Political parties
• 6 Voting behaviour
• 7 Interest groups
• 8 Europe and the French policy-making style
• 9 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index